Food, Fashion and Fabulous Outings

July 17, 2015

Shotgun Players "Top Girls" is Aces: Review

Live theater matters, because it’s the closest thing we have to an empathy gym.Bill English, SF Playhouse Founder & Artistic Director

Shotgun Players’ new production of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls is like a Crossfit boot camp for empathy as well as one of the best cast and executed plays I’ve seen all year. It's also an awesome addition to their all-women playwright season.

I was still a kid in the early 80s and missed the kerfuffle created by the play’s original run. Even later, I never understood why everyone hated on Maggie Thatcher—I spent college summers in London because the higher wages commanded by my typing skills (British students didn’t study typing) eased my rocketing student debt. To me, the late 80s UK economy was a gift from heaven and being a young woman helped, not hurt my prospects. That said, there were precious few older women in positions of power and most of them, like Thatcher, were considered "tough, old birds".

Twenty five years later with wings of my own and a very different financial as well as career perspective, I clearly see that not everyone benefited from the things I took for granted. Top Girls captures the genesis of a chasm that’s only deepened and hardened globally. Wage inequality. Leaning In vs. whip cracking. The fine line between compassion vs. enablement.

Go see this timeless play—the first act alone is worthy of its own production, as famous real and imagined women from throughout the ages break bread and dish on their lives.